Matthew Yglesias on "Atlas Shrugged"

A couple of weeks back, Matthew Yglesias attacked GOP Representative John Campbell for literally "taking cues" from Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged, and then concluded:

I haven’t actually read the book but my understanding is that in Atlas Shrugged they’re actually building a high-speed rail link from Las Vegas to Disneyland.

Now, in response to Caroline Baum's argument that Barack Obama needs corporations like AIG more than they need him, Yglesias says this:

Atlas Shrugged is a stupid book, Ayn Rand is a stupid woman, and John Galt’s ideas are stupid. That said, none of them are nearly this stupid. Rand’s novel isn’t about a world in which executives who build companies based on a lot of incorrect decisions, then pay themselves millions of dollars while bankrupting their firms ...

Atlas Shrugged is a beefy novel, over a thousand pages long. Yglesias must have a lot of leisure time to enjoy works of profound literary and philosophical importance; either that, or he's one helluva power reader!

It's bad enough to repudiate rational self-interest as the guiding ethic of a moral political economy, but attacking Ayn Rand's objectivism, and those endorsing it, without having read the book is beneath contempt.

No doubt the thought police over at American Nihilist and Lawyers, Guns and Money will be on top of the case, calling out Yglesias for his abject dishonesty and total stupidy.

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UPDATE: Instalanche!